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Dessert

Fruit-cake.

A dense cake made with sugar, butter, flour, eggs, raisins, currants, citron, almonds, spices, brandy, rose water, cloves, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fruit-cake.

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat the eggs separately until stiff, then fold them into the butter mixture.

  3. Gradually add the flour, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the raisins, currants, citron, and chopped almonds.

  5. Add the allspice, cinnamon, brandy, rose-water, cloves, and grated nutmeg.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into a well-buttered baking pan lined with buttered paper.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven for several hours until the cake leaves the sides of the pan.

  3. Let the cake cool gradually in the oven.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Almond + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten until stiff and folded in, they lighten the batter and help give it structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, adding tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the heavy fruit and nuts together as the cake sets.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for a light texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cake.
Almonds
Add richness, fat and a firm chewy texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Baking for several hours and cooling gradually in the oven. A long, low bake lets the heavy, fruit-filled batter set through its centre without the outside over-browning. Cooling slowly in the oven reduces sudden temperature change, which helps prevent cracking and collapse.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, egg, raisin, almond, allspice):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, raisin, almond, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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